


Ouroboros

by J_D_McCormick



Category: Constantine: City of Demons (Cartoon), Hellblazer & Related Fandoms
Genre: (its not looking too good lmao), Gen, also an exploration of chas' marriage, an exploration of chas and why chas stays friends with john, john is only mentioned, the teen is for language because as a brit i cannot stop fucking swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29686065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_D_McCormick/pseuds/J_D_McCormick
Summary: It’s an old argument. An old, tired, frustrating argument that Chas wishes Renee would just fucking drop already. It’s an argument they've been having for something nearing 20 years, and yet somehow, always, it crops up again.It's about John. It's always about John.
Relationships: Chas Chandler & John Constantine, Chas Chandler & Renee Chandler
Kudos: 12





	Ouroboros

**Author's Note:**

> Ouroboros - a snake eating its own tail, an unending cycle
> 
> Again, my headcanon is a little conglomeration of canons - this one draws heavily on the DCAMU and Hellblazer #84, along with a bunch of my own tweaks and changes. Chas' exact childhood experiences are somewhat vague here, but I may explore it further. Who knows.

It’s an old argument. An old, tired, _frustrating_ argument that Chas wishes Renee would just fucking drop already. It’s an argument they've been having for something nearing 20 years, and yet somehow, always, it crops up again. He’s starting to dread Geraldine’s bedtime, now, because Renee will never bring it up in front of her – but once she’s off to bed, it’s open season.

"Why do you still hang around him, Chas? Why do you still hang off him like a bloody lovesick puppy?" She demands, following him as he tries to walk away from the conversation, into the kitchen.

It's about John. It's always about John.

"Because he's my mate, Renee. He's me best mate, and I'm not gonna drop him like a sack of hot potatoes just because you told me to!" Chas says, exasperated, as he always does. He doesn't know why it’s never enough for her. _Mates don't ditch mates_. He doesn’t know why she needs another reason.

"But _why_ , Chas? What's he ever done for you?" Renee asks, voice hard and cold as she scowls up at him.

"He’s done plenty. More than I've ever asked for. More than I can repay." Chas snaps at her. This is what gets under his skin - that Renee doesn’t even know John, not really, not past the couple dozen layers of walls and masks he's put up over the years, and she still hates him. Hates him because she thinks she knows him, when she doesn't.

Hardly anyone knows John anymore. He doesn't let them. John has defences decades thick, practised and perfected, a glamour beyond any spell. But all of those walls have a Chas shaped hole built into them, doors and windows he’s got keys to because he's been there since before they were built. Or, at least, before they were reinforced, back when they'd been flimsy things of smoke and mirrors rather than brick and mortar. Most everyone else has gone now, waltzed away, had their holes patched up, but not Chas. He refuses to be one in an endless procession.

"So it's a debt? You hang around him because you think you owe him?" Renee stares up at him hard like he’s mad and she’s trying to make him come to his senses.

"Yes- No- Look, it's more complicated than that, Renee." Chas groans, presses a hand to his face. "You don't get it."

"No, I _don't_ get it, Chas. I don't get why you'd uproot your own life, leave your _wife and daughter_ behind, all to go on wild goose chases with a dangerous lunatic!" Her tone is acid, and Chas feels its burn.

" _He ain't a lunatic!_ " He yells, then grits his teeth and takes a deep breath, closing his eyes.

He abruptly remembers being seven, eight, nine, sitting on the landing of their tiny council house on an estate up in Liverpool, leaning on the banister as he listened to his mum and dad shout at each other. Remembers searching for his name in the raised tones, wondering if he had caused all this, somehow. Wondering if he could fix it. He doesn't want that for Geraldine.

"He's not... He's got some problems, our John, but he's not a lunatic. He's just hurting, that's all." He gets out, calmer, quieter.

"No, he's hurting _you_. Hurting _others_. He _hurts_ people Chas, that's what he does." Renee presses, leaning across the kitchen table towards him. He leans away, resting back on the counter, and wonders when he'd put it between them.

"It’s not." He insists, shaking his head. "He's a prickly bastard, a right mean cunt when he wants to be, but he doesn't want to hurt people. No-one who don't deserve it."

"Then what do you call that girl in Newcastle-"

"You don't know shit about Newcastle, Renee, don't try bringing it here like some kind of trump card." Chas snaps again. He keeps his volume down this time, even as his tone turns hard and serious. "I never said he was a Saint, alright, but he's not some deranged killer neither."

"No, he's just some devil-worshipping occultist who fucks around with dangerous magic." Renee sneers. "I still don't understand Chas. All he's ever done is dragged you into this mess of magic bullshit, and-"

Chas barks out a laugh. "He never dragged me into it. He _saved_ me from it, Renee. That 'magic bullshit' was ruining my fucking life and John saved me from it."

Chas' dad had walked out when he was ten. To hear his mum tell it, he'd been a good-for-nothing anyway, but he'd at least been a counterpoint to her. He'd been quiet, and gentle, and not completely off his rocker. Once his dad was gone, Mam started raving about magic more than ever, but it had never made any sense to Chas. And she'd used him, turned it against him, made his life a living hell with it. Even without the magic, she’d have ruined his childhood; but with it, she tormented him, stopped him being able to ever get out. John had put a stop to it, helped him protect himself from it. Without John he’d still be trapped there with her.

Renee makes a frustrated gesture with one hand. "Then why keep going _back_? All he does is magic and demons and that."

"Because... because I know him. I trust him." Chas says helplessly.

And in the end, that was it. Chas and John had known each other from kids. Chas had known the worst-kept secret, of Tommy Constantine and what he did. He knew about John's mum, and where his bruises came from, and why he was out on the streets of Liverpool all hours. And John knew why Chas' dad left, what happened to Terry, why Chas could never look his mother in the eye. And they'd silently promised to look out for each other, be it patching up a split lip or sharing lunches in the playground. Be it offering a cigarette or running away together.

Be it offering a lift to wherever John needed to go, or letting Chas get all his problems out of his head.

John may have been involved in magic, deeper and darker than his mother ever was, but John made magic safe, in a way, made it make sense. John knew how to cast a protective ward as well as he did a damaging one, taught Chas runes and symbols of protection against what had hurt him. Chas couldn't do magic, didn't have a lick of it in him, but he could recognise it now from a mile away, steer clear of it. Call in John, to take care of it. And most of all, Chas could trust that John wouldn’t turn any of his nastier magicks on him, not in any way that’d hurt him. Wouldn’t make him stink to stop him making friends, wouldn’t send apparitions to scare off his lovers, wouldn’t bind him down until he stopped screaming and started behaving. Would do everything he could to stop anything of that sort from happening to him.

They’d had each other. It was all they’d had, as kids. Sometimes, it still felt that way.

“And he knows me. He trusts me. There ain’t many people left who can say that, Renee. I ain’t giving up on him, not now, not ever.” Chas says firmly, standing upright. “Either you learn to live with it, or you pack my bags.”

They always get to this point. Renee’s never called him on the threat, and this time it doesn’t seem like she will either. Sometimes he wishes she would, so that they could just be done with the whole song and dance – but then he remembers Geraldine, and feels sick to his stomach for even considering it. He refuses to be the kind of father to her that his dad was to him. It’s a good life he’s got here, even if him and Renee have blips, simple and normal and _steady_ , and he’s sure Renee hangs onto that as tight as he does. All he’d ever wanted was simple, normal, steady. Sometimes, though, he wants to turn tail and run; go on the road, like him and John and the band had done as teenagers.

But Renee doesn’t pack his bags. They traipse silently up to bed, check on Geraldine – find her fast asleep, still tucked up tight in bed – then go to sleep, without speaking, facing away from each other on opposite sides of the mattress. They act like nothing happened when they wake up, make breakfast for Geraldine and drop her off at school.

And when John calls him two nights later, spitting words a mile a minute about a black dog tearing through a couple towns outside of Manchester, needing a lift and a hand, Chas agrees. Renee gives him a dirty look but doesn’t say a word. The argument will happen again, he’s sure, once he’s back. It usually does.

But it won’t stop Chas helping out his best mate. Nothing will.

**Author's Note:**

> I... love Chas. Chas is a good man and a good friend and I am Soft over him and John growing up as ragtag friends, the two of them against the world. John needs one true, reliable friend in his life, and Chas is that friend. It's good. I definitely like their friendship running deeper than just "Chas owes John a debt" - I think he probably does, but in a much deeper and more nebulous way. Aaannnd this fic is me having a go at exploring that.
> 
> I also have a bit of a headcanon that Chas and Renee, while having a genuine affection for each other at some point and having a shared history of support, are kind of together out of... feelings of obligation. In part because Renee helped Chas after Newcastle, and in part because Chas got Renee pregnant. Think Mickey and Linda in Blood Brothers. It's not a bad marriage, but it's not one borne of a true desire to be together forever, either.
> 
> ANYWAY, I have rambled enough. Feedback is always appreciated, and thank you for reading!


End file.
